Acts 2:25

Grammar Lesson: λέγει εἰς — Literal Syntax and Meaning

1. Verb and Preposition: Structural Overview

• λέγει — 3rd person singular present active indicative of λέγω, “to say,” “to speak.”

• εἰς — Preposition governing the accusative himself, meaning “into”, with a directional or goal-oriented force.
  ❖ Thus, λέγει εἰς = “he/she is speaking into himself”.

2. Clarifying What It Is Not

a) Not “to someone”

• λέγει πρός + accusative or λέγει + dative conveys “speaks to” or “says to/toward.”

  • e.g. λέγει πρός τὸν ἄνδρα — “he speaks to the man”

  • e.g. λέγει αὐτῷ — “he says to him”

b) Not “concerning/about”

• λέγει περί + genitive expresses “speaks about / concerning/ around”

  • e.g. λέγει περὶ τοῦ νόμου — “he speaks about the law”

c) Not timeless, participial, or idiomatic

• Expressions like “he who says to” or “says concerning” require participles or different constructions (e.g., ὁ λέγων πρός or λέγει περὶ). The renderings "he says" are akin to participle verbs are just a crafty way to evade the present tense indicative, which, if the author meant to quote past history, he would have written in a past tense, "he said".

3. Straight Reading of λέγει εἰς

The preposition εἰς retains its directional, spatial meaning:

“into,” “toward the interior of,” “into the midst of.”

Therefore, λέγει εἰς literally describes speech directed into something — whether physically, conceptually, or metaphorically envisioned as a space.

4. Notes on Usage

While λέγει εἰς does occur in Koine and Hellenistic texts — often under Semitic influence — its literal grammatical force remains consistent with εἰς as expressing movement into or toward. It does not mean "to" in the same way as πρός or the dative do.

5. Conclusion

λέγει εἰς should be understood, at the level of strict grammar, as:

“he is speaking into…”,
retaining the directional force of εἰς and the present-tense aspect of λέγει.

This reading resists the smoothing or interpretive glosses common in idiomatic translations.